Meeting a random stranger…

An interesting experience happened to me the other day which I was so inspired about I thought I should write a blog post about it. After a series of 6 month awful ‘relationships’, if you can even call them that, (as you know no one in this day and age can actually commit) I was sick of online dating and was ready to delete all the dating apps (yet again!…there is a pattern of this) and give up…

And then two nights ago I was walking home as my plans had fallen through and a man approached me in the street…as I thought at the time…this is weird!! Us Londoners assume that if you speak to a stranger in public they are automatically a psychopath, however, after some polite and charming conversation he asked if I was single and whether he could take my number. Strangely, he was actually really good looking and didn’t seem like an alcoholic so I gave him my number. We started walking in the same direction towards the Thames Path and it was completely natural. I did something that I haven’t done before and decided to ask him if he was free now and fancied going for a coffee; you always hear about these stories in films and books & I suddenly had the confidence to think ‘why not ask him!’ We ended up going for a drink and we got on so well, it was like we had known each other for years; we had so much in common, so much to talk about and I really thought he was inspirational. As an introvert he said it was really hard for him to come up to me, but said he would have regretted it more if he had walked past me and never got the chance to speak to me. By the end of the night we both walked slowly back to the station and spoke about how everything could have been different he hadn’t approached me.

The next day we texted all day and following the London terrorist attacks (Wednesday 22nd March), I was feeling on edge and scared. I actually happened to be at a work event where I was only 0.7 miles away from where the attack was, which brings it close to home. Anyway I’m not writing this to talk about the attacks (there doesn’t need to be anymore publicity about it), I’m writing about this courage I suddenly had to met him again for a second night in a row. He was flying back to Ireland the next day & I might never see him again. Also let me get this straight…..two dates, two days in the row is something that is not done in London and something I would never do (far too keen!). So my gut telling me to go was telling me something!

The point of telling my story today is leading to the question – what if he hadn’t come over to speak to me? Why do we not push ourselves do the things that make us feel out of our comfort zone? He had so many interesting stories and wasn’t afraid to have a deeper conversation that the usual casual shallow chats we have where we talk, but we don’t really talk about anything. Honestly, I have always believed in fate….& I think this is an example of fate and us meaning to meet as I was very close to getting the train home or walking another route. My friend also told me that thank god I was in a good mood as I wouldn’t normally act like that with a random stranger on the street, I would normally probably think they were trying to steal something off me (travelling days coming back to me) but actually it didn’t even cross my mind.

On telling one of my closest friends this story she told me about a radio presenter (can’t remember who it was now!) talking on his show about every Friday going out and meeting random stranger and how intriguing it is. Luckily for him, where he is famous people probably approach him more often and he has a higher chance of associating around more interesting people….But what if we all did that once a week, just met a random new stranger? The things we would learn, the spontaneity, we would all take something from that.Why are we so afraid of pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone? And even if I never hear from him again…I felt like I was on a cloud & he has restored my faith in men again….